North Jury Is Out, But Out Where? After 12 Days, No Verdict, No More Notes

COMMENTARY

May 4, 1989|STEVE WELLER, Staff Columnist

The question is not whether the Oliver North jury will reach a verdict this year. The question is, when they disappear behind closed courthouse doors every day, do they stay there?

Does their room have a back door? Is there a window to slip out of? A drainpipe to shinny down? Are they really in there? When Judge Gerhard A. Gesell says the jury is still out, does he mean they`re still weighing the case or they`re out on the street doing errands, taking the air?

These are serious questions. The jury began deliberating almost two weeks ago. There has been no sign of any kind of progress. There also has been no sign of any kind of problem. Oh, there was one little high blood pressure incident and a mild case of the flu early on but nothing related to North`s fate.

When Judge Gerhard A. Gesell gave jurors their instructions, he told them they were to communicate only through notes and were not to give the faintest clue, not even to the court, about how they stood numerically on any of the 12 charges against North.

That is standard procedure. Generally, though, when a jury stays out for any length of time, there are little hints about how things are going. Clarifications of legal points are requested, transcripts of testimony are sought.

Not this time. During the first three days of deliberation, the jurors sent eight notes to Gesell. They asked for paper, paper clips, marking pencils. They wanted to make sure the lunch break would start at noon. They asked that the van come around to pick them up at 4 p.m. every afternoon to take them back to the hotel in which they are sequestered.

They didn`t ask for anything pertaining to the two-month trial they had just heard.

Since that first flurry there has been no

communication. It is time to stop operating on good faith. Just because juries traditionally stay where you put them doesn`t mean they all do.

I say check the room. There can`t be anybody in there. Sure, they come back for lunch and they are there when it`s time to knock off. In between meals and transportation, they go shopping. They sit in the park. They feed the pigeons. So, go ahead, knock on the door. Inventory the office supplies. Has any of the paper been used? Are all the paper clips there?

Remember, this is not your basic jury. We`re talking about 12 people who qualified for the job by convincing the court they thought Oliver North was a utility infielder for the Cleveland Indians. They didn`t watch television news, never read newspapers and didn`t hang out with anybody who did.

This is not meant critically. Millions of Americans avoid as much news as possible. It depresses them. Millions of Americans would have lied, if necessary, to get out of serving on the North jury.

After sitting through two months of testimony, would you want to be locked in a room with 1,300 pages of documents, trying to decide if the defendant was a selfless patriot or a self-serving hotshot?

Would you want to be stuck in there wondering how many liars were in court and how many were in the White House?

I wouldn`t want anything to do with it. Not unless I could nail the stars of the show, starting with North`s old boss, Ronald Reagan.

Maybe that`s what`s delaying a verdict. North has admitted -- change that to bragged -- that he lied to Congress, that he destroyed evidence.

Forget the other stuff. The jurors should have been able to agree on that in 15 minutes. Maybe it bothers them that an underling Marine officer with a flair for cops-and-robbers is taking the rap.

Maybe they`ve reached verdicts on all charges but want to break the record for free meals. That record is held by a Washington jury that spent 36 days on a racketeering case in 1986.

Whatever the outcome, I don`t think the North jury is in that room. Good for them. They got dragged into a sloppy courtroom charade and are just doing their part.